A Plea For Tolerance

Seeking Liberty

A Tumblr log detailing a Metricon NSW project home build

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Chris and Sue’s Tumblr log about their adventure building the Liberty 42 with a Plantation facade.

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A Plea For Tolerance

Tolerance is something you need plenty of when building a new home — tolerance that is, to deal with the delays and mistakes that inevitably happen.

Tolerance also to deal with claims that things that are not according to the plans, are still within accepted tolerances.

Our electrical plan was quite complex and the electricians mostly did a very good job to get things right. However their attention to detail in terms of positioning some items as per the plans left something to be desired.

As an example, these fan/heat/light combos are centred on our plans, but have been fitted way off centre on site. The centre of the room here is approximately midway between the downlights, but look where the combo has been fitted.

And in this bathroom, the centre of the room is in line with the downlight, but the combo is again way off to the side

I thought the reason for this could have been a ceiling beam, but when I was on site with SS, he looked up into the ceiling manhole in this bathroom and there is no beam that would have prevented this fan/heat/light combo from being centred.

The downlights at the front of the house are also off centre

I have checked photographs from before plastering, and there is no ceiling beam here that would have prevented the dowwlight from being fitted in the midline.

In addition, the 2 downlights on either side of this centre downlight are positioned at different distances from the centre downlight, contrary to the plans.

You might think that for the front of the house, where appearance is important, more care would be taken to ensure the plans are followed. Alas, tradespeople working on this house dont always think that way!

Another one — this light junction box in the Outdoor Room is supposed to be fitted external to the beam on the plans (towards the right of the photo). However it has been fitted way too high and too close to the beam. This very much limits the type of light fitting we can install after handover — we had wanted to fit tall up/down lights, but this will likely now not be possible as they will either hit or get too close to the the beam.

There are several other examples that I wont go into here in the interest of not rambling on (e.g. the floor level step lights are not fitted where they are on the plans).

SS has been very obliging and dutifully conveyed all our concerns to Vaccaro Group. The initial feedback he has received (nothing in writing yet — dont know if they have been on site to check my queries) is that the electrical plans are only ever meant to be approximate and that these are all within accepted tolerances.

If that is their final decision, it would mean e.g. that they can fit a light up to about 600mm away from where it is on the plans (i.e. the bathroom combos) and then claim that it is within tolerances! I look forward to seeing the standards document that states electrical fittings can be positioned so far off where they are on the plans.

SS explained that moving light fittings or switches was a major job because the old hole has to be plastered and then the wall repainted. Well, yes. But that shouldnt be my problem, and if plans had been reasonably accurately followed for these items in the first place, no repositioning/replastering/repainting would be required.

This is another item I have pointed out to SS and that he has conveyed on.

This was caused by the handrail initially being fitted on the incorrect side of the stairs. The handrail has been repositioned, but it now obviously overshadows the light switch that was fitted earlier when the wall didnt have a handrail.

Do you think they will agree to move this one, even though it will result in replastering and repainting?